TONY Blair fears that his own High Noon will be delivered by Merseyside voters.

Tomorrow's council elections across the region may provide the killer shot for his own nine-year premiership if, as expected, Labour voters stay away in droves.

That is why he chose to go to the Wild North West yesterday to make a keynote speech to shore up support hammered by weeks of sleaze, turmoil and incompetence.

He knows that if Northern heartlands such as Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle go into freefall his own grasp on power will be seriously undermined.

That in turn could force him to hand over the reins to chancellor Gordon Brown later this year rather than wait until he has matched Baroness Thatcher's 11-year record.

It is not overall control that matters - Liverpool and Newcastle are run by the Liberal Democrats - but the scale of disenchantment among Labour voters which could translate into a general election disaster.

That is also why Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell was in Liverpool yesterday and why Tory leader David Cameron is pouring unprecedented levels of campaigning into the Merseyside fringes.

For Blair, the current crisis is taking on all the hallmarks of a classic spaghetti Western.

The GOOD, he reckons, is himself.

New Labour have always believed that he is their great-est asset, especially when it comes to electioneering.

But his "trust me" approach is wearing thin amongst Labour voters due to conflict in Iraq, local hospitals in deficit, his wife Cherie's #7,700 hairdressing bill, the cash for peerages scandal and the general air of tired-ness and incompetence hanging over his administration. A government that appears to react in panic to events, rather than initiate them.

Blair was correct to point out yesterday that "nine years of achievements are worth more than nine days of headlines".

His record on Merseyside is impressive when you factor in unemployment, the national minimum wage, inward investment and Capital of Culture.

But no sheriff can survive when he becomes a laughing stock, and Blair is in danger of being seen more like Deputy Dawg than Clint Eastwood.

The BAD is home secretary Charles Clarke, hanging onto his job by his fingernails after it was revealed that blunders have left hundreds of foreign convicted criminals, including killers, rapists and muggers, in Britain after completing their sentences.

The fiasco has a strong resonance across Mersey-side, where people have been outraged by the expulsion of Bootle school governor Arif Dar and his family.

Mr Dar was released, battered and bruised, after being held for 10 days by the Pakistani regime he fled five years ago. His family are surviving on charity in one room. His wife has suffered a breakdown. His four younger daughters are unable to complete their education and eldest daughter Azbaa is on the run in England.

And all because Clarke told the immigration service to focus on clearing the backlog of asylum cases, even if it meant expelling a popular, hard-working and academically-talented family.

As a result of that misguided priority, convicted criminals slipped the deportation net and were free to re-offend. It was a case of hitting the wrong target, with devastating implications for public security, simple justice and his own ministerial career.

More the gunfighter who can't shoot straight than Lee Van Cleef.

And the UGLY is, of course, deputy premier John Prescott.

Prescott's role within New Labour's inner circle was always to appeal to traditional voters in the

That reputation was already looking shaky even before his private life snatched the headlines, thanks to his policy of demolishing Northern terraced homes, pressing on with dodgy public-private financing deals, and battering trade unions into line.

But his admission to a two-year affair with his diary secretary, allegations of cavorting in ministerial offices and misusing transport and hospitality paid for by the taxpayer, have fatally tarnished his Northern star.

Northern voters don't expect their politicians to be whiter than white, but they don't like them using the trappings of office to cheat on their wives.

And his efforts to persuade people it is no-one's business but his own, look increasingly feeble.

He is more Desperate Dan than Eli Wallach.

Various other factors can be thrown into the mix, such as transport secretary

Alistair "Butch" Darling's decision to pull the plug on the Merseytram scheme.

By holding back #170 million in long-promised government funding he de-railed a scheme vital for the regeneration of Liverpool, the Grosvenor shopping centre, the King's Dock stadium and preparations for the 2008 celebrations.

And there is also the region's band of backbench rebels like Walton's Peter Kilfoyle and West Derby's Bob Wareing, known collectively as the Wild Bunch.